I have always been drawn to the abstract, and yet I can feel the influences that have shaped me: doorways and dreams, marriage and motherhood, light and shadow, Monet and Matisse. I seek to capture the movement of life in light and shadow, in vivid color, and in images that capture the imagination. As you enter my website I hope you see work that challenges you to find the doorways and dreams in your own life.

Looking back, I suppose that everything that came next was due in part to a mid-life crisis. Of course, I was a bit older than that, but I’ve always been a bit of late bloomer. It went like this: On January 1, 2000, I woke early. For thirty-eight years, I’d been a mother, wife and business partner to my husband, Billy Mills, Olympic Gold Medalist in the 10,000 meter run. I had traveled the world, seen each of my daughters married, and had been blessed with grandchildren. It was, in most ways, exactly the kind of life I’d wanted, but as I made my way downstairs for a cup of coffee, I suddenly realized that I’d been putting off my own dreams for far too long.

New Year’s Day is like that for a lot of people. Resolutions, vows, promises to change . . . the desire for one’s life to improve is nearly universal. For most, that means leaving something in the past behind. For me, however, it was just the opposite, and I found myself remembering a warm summer evening in Kansas when I was nine years old. I was at my great-grandmother’s farm, and as I stared out the front window at the prairie beyond, I picked up a pencil and began drawing the world beyond the doorway as I perceived it to be. It was a child’s drawing, nothing more, but as I drew, it was as if I heard a voice whispering, “This is what I’m meant to do.”

That same summer, on the steps of a small, ramshackle home on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, a twelve-year old Lakota named Billy Mills was mourning the death of his father. It was hard for him. Billy was especially close to his father, not only for his kindness and patience, but for the fact that his father had always encouraged him to chase his dream. “I hope you try sports, son,” he’d whispered not long before he’d passed away, and another dream was born. Billy wanted to become an Olympian.

Youth is a period when most dreams are sparked to life, and for a lucky few, they continue to burn long enough to be realized. In 1961, I met Billy Mills while we were students at the University of Kansas. I was a young artist, he was a young athlete and the attraction was immediate. We spent long hours walking and talking; he kissed me for the first time on Campanile Hill and I knew I’d fallen in love.

We were married on January 27th, 1962, and by that point in his life, the fire had driven him to become a scholarship athlete had nearly been extinguished. He’d had a falling out with his coach, he’d quit the team, and had decided to stop running entirely. But the original spark still remained, and – maybe because of our relationship or maybe because the memories of his father were still vivid – he joined the Marines and began to train for the 1964 Olympics.A year and a half later, he made the team, but was regarded as a long shot to earn a medal. Instead, in what many sports writers regard as the greatest Olympic upset of all time, he won the Gold Medal in 1964 and set a new Olympic record. The following year, he followed that up with a world record in the six mile run.

Despite marriage, athletic competitions, life in the military and three children, I earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of New Mexico. After that, I settled into a life that in nearly every way, was everything I hoped it would be. As my family grew, I helped build our family’s various businesses, including a speaker’s bureau and 10K Gold Productions, from which came the film “Running Brave” and the book, “Lessons of a Lakota,” which was co-written by Nicholas Sparks (www.nicholassparks.com), and a book in which I was responsible for the illustrations. I was active in many charities, including, “Running Strong for American Indian Youth,” a program implemented by Christian Relief Services www.indianyouth.com.

And yet . . .
Like Billy in 1962, when the spark to chase his dream was reignited, I felt the same spark pertaining to my own dreams on January 1, 2000. That summer, I traveled to France and spent a month in Monet’s Gardens in Giverny, reawakening a passion that had first been kindled by staring through a doorway on a Kansas prairie when I was nine years old. For years, I learned to listen to inspiration and worked on my tupos (Greek: Impression or form), discovering who I was as a painter. I had always been drawn to the abstract, and yet I could feel the influences that had shaped me: doorways and dreams, marriage and motherhood, light and shadow, Monet and Matisse. I sought to capture the movement of life in light and shadow, in vivid color, and in images that capture the imagination. By 2007, I had completed my Masters of Art at California State University, Sacramento. As you visit my website, I hope you see work that challenges you to find the doorways and dreams in your own life.

PUBLICATIONS
2011 Go For It Magazine. Sacramento, California. Interview and Pictorial.
2005 Mills, Billy; Nicolas Sparks. Lessons of a Lakota. A Young Man’s Journey to Happiness and Self-Understanding.
Hay House 2005-2009.
Illustrations (Published in 10 languages).
2006 Festival of New American Music. California State University, Sacramento. Featured artist on poster design.